


all worn down

by preromantics



Series: Falling Stars AU Series [2]
Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-12
Updated: 2010-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which the stars are falling and the world is ending. Spencer helps Jon find himself and they end up finding each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all worn down

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ 8/21/08. Companion fic to 'i will follow you into the dark'.

spencer only feels obligated to join the work force when the scientists announce the end of the world. he leaves his tiny suburban town to work at the big hospital in the city where they treat the people having adverse effects from the falling stars.

he starts on the one hundred and eighty first day, and buys a calendar with rip off pages to set in the room they give him. he tears off all of the pages in the back, the ones that won't exist anyways at the end. (even though spencer still hopes they will, that this is all some big mistake, a gigantic universal fluke.)

the head nurse of his section is a stern old women with crinkly eyes, on the one hundred and seventy fourth day she assigns him to the stress ward, because he's the youngest. spencer would so much rather be working in the intensive ward, because he is so curious as to how the falling stars are affecting people, beyond the predictable stress and anxiety. and because he wants to help as much as he can before it all falls apart.

the people in the stress ward end up being a nervous, normal bunch of people. spencer spends his time playing simple games with them and talking to them about the weather and all the normal things people used to talk about without a care before the announcement. he'd much rather talk about what he knows all of the patients are thinking about, as the days tick down, but it's been outlawed in the hospital confines, even between employees.

working at the hospital, at least, affords spencer lots of time to not think about the end of the world, too busy thinking of duties and tasks.

spencer wanted to be a nurse when he was younger because he loved learning peoples stories from afar. taking what he knew of them in bits and pieces and filling in the rest of the blanks himself. usually spencer thinks of himself as more rational than someone who spends their days imagining other lives, but this one part of him gets him through the days, especially now, when people come and go from the stress ward and he is left thinking about how they will make it to the end.

some of his patients get transfered, like old mr. watkins, who tried to jump through a window while spencer was in another room. some of the patients are just let go, once they've calmed down and a therapist has talked them through everything. some, most even, spencer thinks will stay until the very end.

and then there are the ones that don't belong. spencer has two of them, one a boy his age named ryan who is an artist, and paints the stars how they were before they started falling down in the corner of the room. one day, he escapes, (spencer was never sure why he was there in the first place), and spencer spends a whole night filling in the blanks about his life. the other patient that doesn't belong is a very nice middle aged woman who reminds spencer of his mother. (his mother, somewhere back home, who writes spencer a letter everyday and spencer doesn't want to think about how he won't get the last few because by that time, the postal system probably won't work anyways.)

spencer doesn't think she belongs because she just seems to have wandered in to find a place for herself, among the others, and all she does is care. spencer likes her.

-

on the one hundred and seventh day, spencer is very suddenly moved to work in the intensive e.o.w ward. e.o.w, spencer knows, stands for 'end of world' and he would think the acronym was funny if it wasn't true. the fact that it is true just makes it more strange than spencer can put into words.

it's more scary than spencer can put into words, and yet he's always thought of himself as a rational person, not frightened by anything he learned in nursing school. it's not blood and gore or anything especially strange, but these people, they scream in pain but nothing palpable is there to hurt them.

it's actually slow work, since the patients are quite normal in between star fallings. spencer isn't assigned anyone in particular, until the one hundred and first day.

-

his name is jon walker, and when spencer sees him for the first time he's lying on his cot, hands gripping at the sheets, a sheen of sweat covering what is exposed of his body, and a soundless scream tumbling from his mouth.

spencer always gets this feeling, a sort of rush through his blood, when a star falls, but most of the time he thinks he imagines it. but it feels so real, this time, when as soon as he gets that feeling, jon walker, numb to the world or anything but the pain, falls back, collapsing, and sighing into the sheets.

he locks eyes with spencer, gives him a thankful look, like spencer has done something so great, and passes out.

-

jon, as it turns out, like most of the others in the intensive ward, is quite normal during the day. spencer doesn't have to do much, but let jon talk at him, and it's so incredibly refreshing, the candid way that jon speaks of the end of the world, and all the things he wants to do before then.

(only one hundred more days, and spencer remembers, he remembers when one hundred was such a big number, back in elementary school, back when he was counting down the days to his birthday. and now, now it is the scariest fucking number -- they all are, from one hundred down. sometimes, always, spencer just feels like falling into himself and re-finding what he once was and what he would have become.)

jon is actually charming, and spencer almost feels bad, watching him stuck in the little room because he just feels so much bigger than that.

spencer tries not to be there, when jon's attacks hit, but it's hard not to be as they become closer every day, and spencer feels that rush of blood passing through him, now much stronger, it's hard not to want to be there like somehow he could make it better. spencer is a nurse, after all.

-

jon tells him he doesn't want to be in the hospital, and he says it so honestly and helplessly that spencer can't get the thought out of his head all day, as he works around the hospital and then feels the blood rush at the end of the day.

spencer, maybe, thinks that the patients at the hospital who don't want to be there, shouldn't. they should be home with their families and friends before everything ends, because that would be the right thing to do. although, at least at the hospital they are cared for maybe better than they would be otherwise.

a lot of days go by, so many that spencer begins to fully, truly realize that the earth is going to end in forty one days and he itches to do something.

jon hasn't mentioned leaving again, and spencer doesn't bring it up either, even though a lot of the other patients with less severe reactions than jon begin to leave around the fiftieth day. spencer tries to be the best nurse he can, to jon, since jon almost seems to get weaker with every attack that spencer isn't there for.

(which is just spencer's speculation, medically it can't make a difference if he's there or not, and he hates to watch, the pain jon is put through when all spencer feels is a rush. it would be impossible for jon to actually feel less pain if spencer is there, physically. although it should be scientifically impossible for the stars to fall down on earth and from the sky - they were supposed to be big and stable, and far far away - so maybe anything is possible.)

on the thirty sixth day jon plays spencer a song in the hospital room and it almost makes the end of the world a little less dreary because it's all about good, happy things.

on the thirtieth day, spencer decides that jon should be allowed to leave the hospital if he wants. except spencer is worried, as he processes the forms, that jon won't make it one of the nights that he gets his attack.

spencer processes an additional form from the one for jon's release, one for resignation.

-

jon is thrilled to leave, and it makes spencer sort of warm, that he can help people beyond medical care. it's been a while since doing something good has made him feel good, too.

they leave the hospital together, although nothing is really spoken about.

jon tells spencer that he heard of this park, the place where the last star has been marked to fall, and that he'd like to go there maybe for the last day.

they take a train until it's very last stop, and jon makes spencer smile the entire way to nowhere.

-

the park, it seems, turns out to be very elusive. people along the way talk about it, snatches of conversation that spencer hears but doesn't get much out of. he spends his nights in hotels on different beds that are across from jon's. usually, he lies awake and tries to fill in the blanks about jon's life but nothing really comes, and strangely, that's okay.

it gets down to the wire on the fifth day. everywhere jon and spencer go is hectic, and spencer feels entirely overwhelmed with the sudden all-encompassing weight of the-end-of-the-world.

that night they sleep side by side and a star falls closer to them than it's ever fallen and spencer holds jon tight through his pain.

-

they reach the park on the last day right in time, there is a sign but no barrier. spencer lays on the damp grass with jon and they hold hands, utterly alone in the dark with one star glittering in the sky.

when the sky becomes brighter with the approaching star, spencer notices a pair of people across from them, laying in the grass much like they are, but it gets so bright, so hot, he can't focus. jon is right there, a rough cheek against his own and there is really nothing but feeling.

jon must be in pain, since the rush in spencer's body is stronger than ever, thrumming through his veins. but when spencer turns just a fraction jon is grinning, big and bright and spencer can't help but grin back.

'thank you,' jon says, rough and fast and spencer barely has time to think why or even think at all and everything turns blinding white.


End file.
